Portobello is Edinburgh's seaside suburb — a long Victorian promenade on the Firth of Forth shore, with generous back-garden plots behind the seafront terraces and the green wedge of Figgate Park and Brunstane Burn linking the shore to the southern housing belts. The wild margins of Figgate Burn, the saltmarsh fringing at Portobello beach, and the substantial walled gardens of the older villa properties give local bees a distinctive coastal-suburban season. Sycamore opens May, Figgate Park's grass and amenity planting carries June, and bramble and rosebay willowherb on the burn margins extend the forage well into August.
Local collectors attend swarms in the Victorian villa gardens and garden-wall cavities of Bath Street and Brighton Place, in the Figgate Park trees and the Brunstane Burn scrub margins, in the chimney stacks and eaves of the promenade tenements, and in garden sheds and compost heaps along the Portobello allotment strip.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
CA6 4HN· approx. 113 km
Visit websiteNE65 9QH· approx. 116 km
Visit websiteNE46 3NB· approx. 126 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Spring comes later than southern England but catches up quickly on horse chestnut and sycamore in the Meadows, Inverleith Park and Holyrood. The lime avenues of the New Town produce a classic pale, mineral June flow; Blackford Hill, Arthur's Seat and the Pentlands add gorse and broom. Bramble and rosebay willowherb are heavy on every disused railway and quarry corridor. Coastal sea-aster and sea-pink on the Forth shore at Cramond, and a strong ivy flow on Old Town walls, close a surprisingly long urban season.
More on beekeeping in City of EdinburghReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
